How Hannah Yun Chamberlain joins Nicole Scherzinger to embody a Hollywood star in 'Sunset Boulevard'

In the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of the classic musical, the pair put movement front and center as younger and older versions of a fading Hollywood star.

At the seven-time Tony Award-nominated Sunset Boulevard on Broadway, the first glimpse audiences get of once-illustrious Hollywood actress Norma Desmond is not Nicole Scherzinger, this revival’s Tony-nominated marquee star, but dancer Hannah Yun Chamberlain. She plays Norma’s inescapable younger self, or at least a specter of her, eerily contorting and sliding her body across the stage as the older Norma careens past her prime and into delusion.

"They wanted to [...] set the scene of Norma and be like, this is how people would know her," Chamberlain said. "Norma Desmond was a screen actress — she wasn't necessarily dancing, [but] it's adding to the narrative of Norma being haunted by this past version of herself."

Sunset Boulevard follows Norma as she, from her decaying mansion on the title street, ropes an unsuspecting young screenwriter (Tony nominee Tom Francis) into her planned comeback to the silver screen. Tony-nominated director Jamie Lloyd invented Chamberlain's character for his striking production, which strips away all old-Hollywood opulence in favor of a stark, largely black-and-white approach (not unlike film noir, complete with live camera footage of the onstage performances). The excess and frenetic energy of L.A. are instead conjured by the live-wire ensemble, whom Lloyd and choreographer Fabian Aloise keep in constant motion.

In Chamberlain's case, dance was necessary to express her character since, being absent from Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s largely unchanged script from 1991, Young Norma doesn’t have any lines. The older Norma gets such memorable statements as "I am big. It's the pictures that got small" and classic Andrew Lloyd Webber songs like "With One Look" and "As If We Never Said Goodbye."

But even as Norma’s mind slips from her grasp, she notably remains in full awareness of her body. That's where the memory of her former glory seems to live, as personified throughout the show by Chamberlain, who describes Norma's dance style in Sunset Boulevard as "contemporary [with] a commercial flair." Commercial jazz — the high-energy style often seen in music videos and movies — happens to be Chamberlain's favorite, but it also makes sense for the fame-hungry Norma. Not to mention that Scherzinger's a skilled dancer herself, best known as the former frontwoman of the Pussycat Dolls.

At one point, Scherzinger blends pop-star allure with Chamberlain's "contortive, spineless" movement style by rolling across the width of the St. James Theatre stage, extending her legs seductively into a straddle with each rotation. Later, while speaking to legendary film director Cecil B. DeMille, she performs an actual move from the Dolls' music video for their 2008 song "Jai Ho!"

"Nicole's Norma is trying to stay current; she wants to be like the young kids," Chamberlain said. "That's why she dances in that way."

Chamberlain, who remembers watching Scherzinger perform on TV as a kid, auditioned for Sunset Boulevard expecting to be in the ensemble. She remembered Aloise later telling her, "Nicole Scherzinger is playing Norma, and you're going to play a younger version of her."

"We were about to start rehearsals in the next week or so, and I was like, 'What the hell?'" she said. Since overcoming that initial surprise, Chamberlain and Scherzinger have developed their collaboration since premiering Lloyd's Sunset Boulevard in London in 2023. Rehearsals, she said, involved mimicking each other's movements to develop a cohesive style.

"We spent a lot of time stood in a mirror next to each other, with Fabian, tracing the face," Chamberlain said, softly caressing her cheeks with her hands to demonstrate. "This movement [is] repeated throughout the show for both of us."

From those minute details grew a broader awareness of each other on stage, which Chamberlain described as an "unspoken connection." "It's been an honor to watch her grow into this character and the Norma she is now," she said of Scherzinger. "She's so generous to me and so kind and caring and thoughtful."

Particularly meaningful to Chamberlain, too, is that she and Scherzinger are playing Norma as Asian actresses and as dancers, both qualities not historically associated with the character. Audience members have shared with her online and in person, she said, that this Sunset Boulevard makes them feel inspired and represented.

"Having a principal role on Broadway as a dancer is wild, and something that is so uncommon, unfortunately," Chamberlain said. "Young Norma being a dancer in the show is so special to me."

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Photo credit: Sunset Boulevard on Broadway. (Photos by Marc Brenner)